7 - Police and Mental Health Collaboration: A Storytelling Approach to Decision Making

Abstract Information: Endeavor Health Services' Behavioral Health Team (BHT) is the primary source of 911 Crisis Co-Response for six local police departments in Western New York. The BHT works in collaboration with community police departments to provide crisis de-escalation, higher level of care intervention, post crisis follow-up, and linkages to care. This model began in 2019 with one pilot police department, with the intention of expanding on the existing Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program, as a mental health professional was embedded directly within the CIT program’s daily operations. CIT training is a model of law enforcement training that focuses on communication techniques, mental health identification, and crisis de-escalation. As the new program launched, Endeavor Health Services conducted a formative program evaluation of the Behavioral Health Team (BHT) Co-Response's implementation and outcomes. This presentation will provide a description of that formative evaluation, including the frame factors, project methodology, key findings, and recommendations with implementation steps, critical success factors, and next steps.

Relevance Statement: This proposal will present the formative evaluation of implementing crisis co-response in Erie County, New York. Endeavor Health Services, a not-for-profit licensed behavioral health organization, currently embeds crisis clinicians within 6 local police department Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT). This unique presentation will demonstrate how the formative evaluation improved understanding, training, adoption, and thus the crisis de-escalation encounter in the community. This proposal will state why formative evaluation is an integral step in program development. We will be able to demonstrate how the evaluation plan has resulted in a consistent training program with BHT staff members upon hire, the addition of more localities adapting the Co-Response model, an increase in service hours for existing localities, awareness promotion, and a robust continuum of care. Endeavor’s formative evaluation of the BHT’s Co-Response model was informed by the New World Kirkpatrick Model¹. In addition, this evaluation sought to specifically meet the program evaluation standards of A4, A8, F1, and P1². The evaluation was designed to be participatory in nature, linear, and systematic. The Evaluation Questions Checklist was utilized to develop effective and appropriate evaluation questions³. The evaluator considered how this change in crisis response would affect the person experiencing crisis, the police officer, the behavioral health clinician, and other parties like the hospital and judicial systems.

¹Kirkpatrick, J. D., & Kirkpatrick, W. K. (2016). Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation. Alexandria Atd Press
²Yarbrough, D. B., Shulha, L. M., Hopson, R. K., and Caruthers, F. A. (2011). The program evaluation standards: A guide for evaluators and evaluation users (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
³Wingate, L., & Schroeter, D. (2007). Evaluation questions checklist for program evaluation. Retrieved from https://wmich.edu/evaluation/checklists